Turkish Government will respect court ruling on Gezi Park

Turkish Government will respect court ruling on Gezi Park

The Turkish government has said that it will comply with the court ruling to suspend the demolition of Gezi Park.

Speaking in the early hours of this morning, AKP spokesman Huseyin Celik made a statement after a late night meeting between PM Erdogan and 16 representatives of the protesters in Ankara. The meeting lasted for nearly four hours.

The prime minister held a second meeting with a new delegation made up of members of the Taksim Solidarity Platform, which had been at the very centre of the protests from day one; it also included eight artists who had been strong supporters of the demonstrations.

In reference to the court ruling which had suspended the planned recreation of the Ottoman Artillery Barracks on the site of Gezi Park, Celik said that if the appeal to build fails, then the park would be saved. He added that if the project got the ‘go ahead’, then the government would organise a referendum on the fate of Gezi Park.

The Taksim Solidarity Platform said that they were satisfied with the government’s response to the court’s decision and said that they too would act positively in return.

The AKP spokesman again asked for the protests at the park to end.

In the meanwhile, the Taksim platform announced a gathering in memory of those who died during the protests.

The death toll, so far is five and 5,000 injured in the demonstrations which began two weeks ago in Istanbul and then spread across the country in an upsurge of feeling against the increasingly authoritarian stance of Prime Minister Erdogan.